How love can change someone's heart
by Cecielz
Summary: Ino has trained like hell for the Chuunin exam and is sure Sasuke will notice her, and he will but in a different way than planned. [InoShika]
1. Preparations

Chapter one: Preparations

Another day had passed, Ino had been training for four months without a day off and was total loss. She'd learned the Shinranshin, her speed had increased with 400 and she was twice as strong as before. This time she was going to become a Chuunin no matter what. She'd even visited Shikamaru to listen to his advice about strategies. She had to analyze the situation and her opponent carefully and then think what she would do he told her. She was him really thankful that he'd spend a whole afternoon teaching her about strategies and analyzing things. They had became pretty good friends, he even went training with her, giving her another lesson in strategies.

She sat down, and watched the clouds peacefully, they really looked peaceful. 'Hmm I guess I can take a pause of 5 min.' she thought. She lay back in the grass so she could see the clouds better. That one looked like a duck, and the one over there was heart-shaped.

"Quite addictive eh?" said a voice behind her.

"Yeah, I wish I could do it more often like you." she answered.

Shikamaru sat down on the piece grass next to her. "I brought some ramen for you" and he gave her the ramen.

"Hmm I expected that you would find it too troublesome to bring me ramen." Ino said sarcastic.

"Well you haven't eaten since 6 a.m and I think it would be a waste of time if you'd starved yourself to death." he replied.

That's Shikamaru, always thinking more then one step ahead. It seemed that he even thought about what would happen in a ordinary conversation like this. No way I could win this.

"I give up." I took a deep breath and continued "Thanks for the ramen Shikamaru."

Shikamaru smiled, getting a compliment from Ino was rare.

"So do you think you're ready for the Chuunin exam?" he asked.

"Yeah I think so, I've learned a new jutsu and my speed and attack have increased greatly! I'm sure I'm going to become a Chuunin!" Ino said with a huge smile on her face.

"But still be careful! Avoid battles in the forest of death and get to the central building as fast as you can." said Shikamaru.

"I know Shika! You've told me that a dozen times before!" Ino replied.

"Sorry but..."

"You are just worried about me?" Ino cut him in the middle of the sentence.

"Well erhm.. yeah, I mean who else has to boss me around if you are dead?" he said.

"Good point." Then she suddenly said "I wish you could me see fighting."

Shikamaru opened his mouth to talk but Ino continued "At least Sasuke will see me fighting! I'm sure he falls in love with me when he sees me kicking Sakura's a-"

"Actually I will see you fighting." This time it was Shikamaru's turn to cut someone off in the middle of a sentence. He was sick and tired of listening to her stories about Sasuke. 'Will she ever notice that I love her?' he thought.

"You will?" Ino happily replied. She forgot about Sasuke.

"Yeah." Shikamaru continued. "I signed myself up as one of the Chuunins who will watch the exam."

"Really!? I thought you'll find that much too troublesome." Ino shouted happy.

"Well actually my dad signed me up." he replied. But he was lying, he did signed himself up. He wanted to be absolutely sure that Ino would came out of the first two parts of the exam alive.

"Ohw." Ino said disappointed. 'How stupid, of course he would never sign himself up, he's too lazy for that.'

"But still I'll enjoy to see you fighting. Shikamaru said quickly. He's noticed the disappointment in her voice and tried to save the situation. Darn he nearly ruined it. The real reason he'd come to Ino was to tell her that he loved her. The day after tomorrow was the Chuunin exam and he probably wouldn't see her tomorrow. And what if she died in the second part?" Ino was strong but still if there were people like Gaara, Temari and Kankuro again even Ino wouldn't be save.

Shikamaru nor Ino didn't know what to say.

"So will you be there if I and the others come out of the forest?" Ino asked after five minutes.

"Yep." I'll watch all the battles." Shikamaru said.

"Do you want to fight me one more time?" Ino asked.

"Course." Shikamaru replied.

"It's a real battle, to win someone has to give up, faint or die." Ino said.

"Aren't you taking this a bit too seriously?" Shikamaru asked. He loved it when Ino eyes were serious. It looked like they were even more blue then normal.

"No, you think that those guys in the Chuunin exam will have mercy?" Ino said seriously.

'Hmm with someone as beautiful as you they will.' Shikamaru thought.

"You're right." he said. He agreed with Ino to avoid a troublesome conversation.

"So come on!" Ino said and she stood up.

Shikamaru stood up as well. 'God she's so beautiful.' he thought when he saw the sun reflecting on her skin.

"Are you ready?" she asked.

"Yep." he replied.

"Ok! lets begin!" she shouted.

Shikamaru could easy catch her with his Kagemane is he wanted to because there were plenty of shadows on the ground. But he waited to see what Ino was going to do.

'Darn.' thought Ino, he could easily catch her with all those shadows. She started to run around him. 'His Kagemane probably can't keep up with my speed' she thought.

Shikamaru who exactly knew what she was thinking by seeing what she did formed the seals of the Kagemane and set a trap. He wouldn't attack her yet, He'll first see if she finds his traps.

Ino noticed a spot on the ground where it was darker then on the other parts of the ground. 'Shikamaru would never set such an obvious trap, there had to be another trap hidden around somewhere. Suddenly she noticed four other dark spots behind the one she's noticed. He'd probably also had another one behind her. 'I guess he won't expect me to run straight towards him. She turned to the left and ran straight towards him.

Shikamaru who always knew every possible thing his opponent could do set another trap 2 meters behind him.

Ino ran towards him thinking that he was surprised, jumped over him and landed right into his trap.

"I noticed your tr... what the?" She tried to move but her body wouldn't listen. Did she fell in his trap after all? She looked at his face. 'How could I be so stupid? He even wasn't serious yet, he was just playing with me. Well done Yamanaka, if you act the same at the Chuunin exam you won't even get the chance to reach the 3rd round.'

"You got me again." she said sad.

"Still you noticed the first two traps." Shikamaru said.

"Naruto would have ran straight into them."

"But still you can finish me easily, I'm right before a tree, you can defeat me the same way like you did with that Sound."

"Ino don't be sad, most people would have run into the first two traps and even it they noticed those they would have been caught with the third." said Shikamaru.

That made Ino feel a little better. "But still I have been stupid, I'm not giving up so you have to finish me off.""

Shikamaru didn't answer, he would never hurt Ino though she had slabbed him so many times.

"I don't want you to go easy on me, so come on finish me off." Ino said."

Suddenly the Kagemane disappeared.

Shikamaru raised his hand and said "I, Nara Shikamaru give up." he turned around and said "If you will not give up, I will."

Ino was surprised, she always had been a nasty vixen to him and now he had the chance to punish her he didn't.

"Why didn't you finish me off." Ino asked.

Shikamaru didn't answer that question though he exactly knew what the answer was, he loved her, from the first day they met, he had never told anyone about it, not even Chouji.

Ino always had explanation for his weird behaving but now she had no idea why he did this. The thought that he could love her didn't even occur in her mind. Shikamaru had a well-known reputation as the lazy no-interest Chuunin in Konoha. No villager would ever think that he'd fancied Ino.


	2. The Chuunin exam

Hi folks here's chapter 2: The Chuunin exam! (Thx for the Reviews!)

The Chuunin exam.

Just five minutes to go till the first round of the Chuunin exam was over. Ino already collected the answers 30 minutes ago with her Shintenshin. She looked at Morino Ibiki, he was reading a note, he looked very serious. Suddenly she had to think of Shikamaru. He had the same serious look on his face when he was playing Shougi.

Ino was still a bit surprised about his behavior. He could have made a complete idiot of her if he wanted to, but instead of doing that he released his Kagemane and let her go. All he did was smile when she asked why he did that. After asking it 50 times she had given up, he wouldn't tell her no matter how much she asked. 'Why did you do that Shikamaru?' she thought.  
She really had no idea. She had thought of different reasons, like that he was scared of that she would send her father to him if he hurt her, or that he didn't have any Chakra left. But none of these reasons seemed really logic. Maybe she had to think of something total different. 'Totally different eh?' she started to think very hard. 'Maybe his clan is against hurting females or to get angry at them, this would explain why Shikato was married to such a 'troublesome' woman. 'But when Ino thought again of that reason she knew it couldn't be 'the reason', if it was he could never have beaten Kin.

'Come on Ino, something totally different.' Suddenly something popped into her mind. 'Maybe he fancies me.' Could that be it? That he fancied her? 'Why on earth would he fancy me, all I do is boss him around and he seems really annoyed by me.'

'Nah, that's not the reason.' Ino continued thinking.

"Everyone here listen very careful I'm going to explain the tenth question." said Morino Ibiki.

Ino forgot about the whole Shikamaru thing and listened to Morini Ibiki.

"Ok, then everyone here," he took a pause to look around "passes."

Ino could hear surprised voices. 'Quite shocking eh?' she thought.

There was a sound of breaking glass and Anko entered the room, the same way she did one and a half year ago.'

"Next the second round of the Chuunin exam!" she said with a huge smile.

The forest of death looked as scary as ever when they entered it.

Ino, Kiba and Shino traveled quickly through the trees, aware of all the dangers lying ahead of them. Ino was quite confident that she wouldn't be in any kind of danger with her teammates. Kiba and Shino were excellent Shinobi. She was happy she could join them because Hinata didn't want to participate and her original team had one person to less to participate.

"We'd better hurry and collect the scroll of Heaven." said Kiba. "If there are people like the sand-nins from our last exam we'd better be very careful, the best way is to think of a strategy and set a trap."

Ino started thinking of a good trap. 'Situation: we're in a forest where everyone is each other's enemy. Landscape: mainly forest. The best way to set a traps to use bait. So, what if we all make a replication of ourselves and set a trap?'

"Kiba, Shino I have an idea." said I.

Kiba looked a bit surprised. "Probably because in the academy I always acted like a dumb blond-haired girl." she thought. But things had changed since she became the teammate of Nara Shikamaru and Akimichi Chouji. She really had learned a lot from them.

"So what's your idea?" he asked. You could hear by the way he spoke that he didn't expect much of me.

"Well, most of the other Shinobi go searching for others, so we'd better decide to stayhere and see them coming, next we set a trap."

"Not bad." said Shino.

"For the trap we use replication, we let them look exhausted and wounded so it's like we have been attacked, next we let them sit on the ground, resting, while we hide in the trees so we can attack when they are in the right position."

"Not bad at all." said Kiba who looked even more surprised after I told the plan.

"Well let's go and make the trap." I said.

I was right, within a few hours some Shinobi's came looking for the scroll they needed and attacked our replications. We could easily attack them and in no time we had defeated them and took their scroll, which luckily was the scroll of Heaven. After we had collected our scroll we hurried to the building in the center of the forest. Within an half hour we arrived.

We were the first ones to arrive. 'I hope Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto are alright.' It would really be a pity if Sasuke didn't pass the second round because then he could not see how much she had improved.

Luckily for me they arrived an hour after we had arrived. When they walked towards us I gave Sakura a big sarcastic smile. I could see the fury in her eyes which made my smile even bigger. Sakura didn't know what to say back and walked away from me.

"We have to spend four more days here." Kiba said with a bored look on his face.

"We'd better prepare for the matches that are coming." said Shino.

"Yeah." I replied. 'You all are going to be astonished about how much I've improved!' Ino thought happily. 'Especially you, Sasuke-kun!'


	3. The Third Round

Hi all! note: My gram might be not that good, but I'm Dutch so please don't blame me too much for it.

The Third Round.

Shikamaru was very relieved when he heard that Ino survived the second exam. The past five days he had been tearing his hair out and he had neglected his work a little. Unluckily for him Tsunade-sama had noticed this and asked him what was wrong. He said that it was nothing but he knew she was suspicious about him. After the conversation with the Hokage he had been very careful not making more people suspicious.

So when he saw Ino without serious wounds he really wanted to hug her, but all he could do is say: Hi, you made it! well done. He knew he couldn't continue like this forever. One day he had to explain his feelings to her, and than she would laugh because of him and say that there was no way he could compete with her precious Sasuke. But somewhere deep inside him there was a little hope that she might love him as well. He knew this was impossible but still he wanted to believe it. He didn't had much to believe in, just his future as an average Shinobi with an average life, so he loved to dream about how life would be if Ino was his girlfriend. But it never went further than dreaming for him.

"Shikamaru the matches are coming, prepare yourself." said one of the other Chuunins who were watching the exam.

"Yeah I'm coming." he replied.

'This all is much too troublesome!' he thought as he walked towards the battlefield.

"First match begin!" announced the examiner.

The first match was Kiba against a rookie. The rookie was strong and it was a long battle, but Kiba was the winner. He and Akamaru did a great a job against the rookie.

Next was Naruto VS Tenten this was also a long battle but the number one hyper active ninja won. 'Pity, I had loved to see his face if he'd lost from a girl.' she thought.

'I hope I win, I really don't want to lose. It will be a disgrace if I lose my match and Sakura wins hers.'

Because she was so busy thinking about when she would lose, she didn't notice that it was her turn to fight.

Shikamaru was really bored, the first two matches were impressive with a lot of dazzling moves etc. but they wouldn't become a Chuunin if they kept fighting like that.

So he lay back against the wall waiting for the next match to be announced. He just lay comfortably against the wall when he saw that Ino had to fight. He nearly got a heart attack when he saw against which person she had to fight.

"Next match: Yamanaka Ino VS Uchiha Sasuke." the examiner announced.

It couldn't get any worse, Ino was with no doubt the strongest female Shinobi here, but there was no way she could win from the Uchiha. Shikamaru felt absolutely miserable. Ino had trained so hard to become a Chuunin and now she was going to be defeated by her 'precious' Sasuke. He also knew that she wouldn't fight on her best because she fancied him. But the worst of all was that Sasuke would beat her KO without any mercy. And maybe.. in the worst situation he would kill her. That thought made him terrible angry, all the time she was busy with making herself beautiful and strong for him. She was doing to this because maybe one day he would notice her and love her, that was she wanted. And now at this very moment that 'dreamboy' of hers was going to beat the hell out of her and maybe kill her.

Shikamaru knew that he had to do something. But even his brilliant mind didn't know a solution to this situation.

Ino nearly fainted when Kiba told her that it was her turn to fight. 'Sasuke watch me!' she thought happily.

But when she saw that she had to fight against Sasuke her happiness disappeared immediately.

She looked at Shikamaru, with eyes filled of despair. She could see the same despair in his eyes.

She walked towards the battlefield with mixed emotions, fear, despair and many other.

She wanted to turn around and run away but then everyone here would laugh and Sakura would tease her a life time with that moment. No way she couldn't turn around.

Shikamaru really hoped that she would turn around, run towards him and say please help me Shikamaru I don't want to fight him, then he could convince her not to fight. But he knew she wasn't going to do that. Not with Sakura in the room.

So all he could do was watch how Ino walked towards the Uchiha, the one who would defeat her, the one who would beat the hell out of her, and maybe the one who would kill her.

"Let the third match begin!" said the examiner.

There was a stifling pressure around the battle field. Everyone was astonished with the match-up.

Ino didn't know what to do, attack him or give up. She fancied him and didn't want to make him hate her because she haddefeated him, but she also didn't wan to lose because she'd trained so hard to get here.

She decided to wait a bit longer and see what would happen.

Sasuke attacked, he forgot the fact that she fancied him and attacked at full strength.

Ino could dodge the first and second attack but the third hit her. She fell on the ground where she could just dodge the fourth attack. She couldn't use any of her jutsu's because none of them would hithim because he moved too fast.

Another attack hit her and this timehe also threw a Kunai.TheKunai hit herand Ino could feela burning pain in her leg.

She looked at his eyes, they showed no signof emotion, no love ,no hate ,no mercy.

Her love for him disappeared and fear came into it's place.

'Shikamaru would never do this to me.' she thought. 'He would have let me go.' He wasneverunkind to her, he never hurt her, he was always there for her, no matter how much she bossed him around.

She decided to give up, Sakura could think what she wanted.

She tried to raise her hand, but she was too late, Sasuke was already running towards her for his next attack.

She saw coming him closer and raising his fist to hit her....

Shikamaru looked at the battle with horror.

Sasuke really didn't care about Ino and he beat the hell out of her.

Every time he hit her he could feel the fury insidehim become bigger and bigger.

When his kunai hit her in her leg he nearly couldn't bridle the desire to jump into the field and kill the Uchiha.

"God no, not that attack Sasuke." said Naruto.

"What attack?" Shikamaru asked.

"He's going to use the Lion Combo." Naruto answered.

Sasuke attacked her with the full combo and Ino hit the ground with a loud smash.

Though he used the full combo Ino was still able to stand up a little.

'She's though.' thought Sasuke. 'I'll finish her with my kunai.'

He took a kunai from his pocket and started running towards her at high speed.

This was the point Shikamaru could no longer control his anger.

"You bastard stop it!" he shouted.

Sasuke stopped and turned around to look at him, an angry Shikamaru was really rare.

"You still don't get it, do you?" Shikamaru continued. "All you feel is hate, hatefor your brother who murdered your clan. The only reason for you to become stronger is so you can murder you brother and avenge your family. But you can't kill your brother with hate alone, he told you that himself but you still don't get it." Shikamaru took a pause to breath and than continued. "You will never become strong enough if you will only feel hate, the thing you need is love, because if you love someone you want to protecthim no matter what, you want to be there for that person when he needs you. The persons in this world who grew strong by the love of protecting someone or something they really loved became the strongest. And you did love your clan, I know you did, so stop hating and start loving. There are so many person here that love you, but you don't love them back. Think about that." said Shikamaru.

Everyone in the room wassilent and looked with surprised eyes to Shikamaru.

Sasuke stood still in the middle of the battle field, he knew it was true what Shikamaru said. And herealized that Sakura, Naruto and Kakashi had been always therefor him. 'That explains why Naruto became sostrong, hetrained with love notwith hate.' he thought. He also realized that Tsunade-sama would never let him become a Chuunin if he didn't realize this. He looked at Ino, she was covered with blood and looked at him with her eyes filled with fear. 'She used to love me too, but know I've done this to her she hates me. My hate only makes other people hate me.' he thought.

After Sasuke realized this he did something no one would expect from him to do, he smiled, raised his hand into the air and said "I, Uchiha Sasuke will give up." 'I'll train with love and take the Chuunin exam again.' he thought.

The crowd was amazed by the reaction of Sasuke from Shikamaru's speech, and discussing loud.

"Winner: Yamanaka Ino." said the examiner.


	4. Revelation

The Revelation

It was a nice sunny sunday morning, two days after the match between Sasuke and Ino.

Shikamaru was sitting underneath a tree, looking peacefully at the clouds. The past two days had been very busy, he had taken Ino to the hospital after she was beaten up by Sasuke, he had made a report of all the genins who had passed the preliminaries and he had visited Ino every day to bring her flowers. After the speech he had given to Sasuke Ino acted a bit strange towards him and every time he visited she didn't say a word about Sasuke or things that had to do with him. She was very kind to him and kept giving compliments to him. Shikamaru knew Ino long enough to know that something was wrong with her and probably it had to do with their relationship. Maybe she'd noticed that he loved her and she didn't wanted to be friends anymore. Shikamaru had no clue of her weird behaviour and he thought that his speech towards Sasuke made her hate him.

The truth though was quite the opposite.

Ino was walking home. She felt absolutely terrible. She had thought all her life long that Sasuke was the one who she'd really loved. And she had hoped that he would give her some mercy. But instead of giving her any mercy that person had beaten the hell out of her. But this situation had one positive side: She knew now who the person was she'd really loved: Nara Shikamaru.

Shikamaru had been there for her so long she could remember. He had always been a friend of her.  
But now, after his speech she realised that he was much more than 'just a friend'. She really loved him and she wished that he would become more than a friend. And because she wanted that so badly she decided to visit him this afternoon.

She had no idea what to say when she would arrive at his home, or if she would give him something or not but that didn't stop her from visiting him.

Shikamaru stood up, he had been watching the clouds for three hours and he was sure that his mother would be angry at him when he cam home. 'Life is so troublesome' he thought and he started walking home slowly.

Suddenly a blond haired girl in red clothes (which used to be blue) came running towards him.

'Oh lord she's going to scream at me.' he thought. And again he had it wrong.

Ino didn't doubt, she ran straight towards him and before he could react she gently kissed his lips.

Shikamaru didn't know what to say or do, so he decided to wait till the kiss was over.

After three seconds Ino released Shikamaru from her kiss.

"Erhm Ino," started Shikamaru but Ino pressed her fingers to his lips.

"Shika I'll explain this whole situation to you." she said. "To begin there will be no Sasuke anymore in my life," She looked him deep into his pretty brown eyes. "Thank you for that speech, I think you made Sasuke realise many important things, also if you would not have said those things to him he would have killed me. And." she felt that she was blushing. "You made me realise that Sasuke is not the one who I really love, but you."

There was a long silence after she had spoken those words.

"I'm happy you've realized that." Shikamaru said with a smile on his face.

"Me too." Ino replied.

"But still you have been a nasty vixen to me for many years, I can't forgive you that very easily." said Shikamaru.

"I'll do anything!" Ino answered.

"Anything?" Shikamaru asked.

"Yes, anything." replied Ino.

Shikamaru smiled, he quickly looked at Ino's beautiful red lips and than back into her crystal blue eyes.

Ino knew what he wanted.

"So that's what you want eh?" she said.

Shikamaru smile grew bigger. He closed his eyes and kissed Ino.

Ino did the same. 'Life isn't that bad." she thought when his lips touched hers.

Yay my first InoShika fic!! ! I hope u all liked it!


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